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2.1 Language of the Ancient Egyptians 2.2 Origins and Development of Egyptian Writing

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2.1 Language of the Ancient Egyptians 2.2 Origins and Development of Egyptian Writing ITTC02 1/25/07 2:54 PM Page 25 Hieroglyphs, Language, and Pharaonic Chronology 25 2.1 Language of the Ancient Egyptians The ancient Egyptians spoke a language which is now called Egyptian. No one knows the correct pronunciation of this language, which in any event changed greatly over the course of several thousand years (as did the written language), and there were probably regional dialects and variations in pronunciation as well. The language is known only through its various written forms, the most formal of which is the pictorial script called hieroglyphic. The Greek word “hieroglyph” literally means “sacred writing,” an appropriate term for a writing system that was used on the walls of temples and tombs, and which the Egyptians themselves called the “god’s words.” Linguists classify languages by placing them in families of related languages, such as the Indo-European family, which includes English and many European and Asian languages. Ancient Egyptian is a branch of the language family called Afro-Asiatic (also known as “Hamito-Semitic”). Ancient languages of the Afro-Asiatic family, such as Egyptian, are known only from preserved written texts, whereas many Afro-Asiatic languages spoken in northern and eastern Africa and recorded in recent times have no earlier written form. The Semitic languages form the most widely spoken branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages, and include ancient languages such as Akkadian (an “East Semitic” language spoken and written in ancient Mesopotamia, in a script called cuneiform, which means “wedge-shaped writing”), and Hebrew (one of the “Northwest Semitic” languages of Syria and Palestine, of the 1st millennium bc). Semitic languages spoken today include Arabic and Hebrew, as well as several languages of central and northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. Other branches of the Afro-Asiatic language family include Cushitic, Berber, Chadic, and Omotic. These names relate to peoples and regions in Africa where these languages are spoken. Berber and Cushitic are geographically closest to Egypt. One of the Cushitic languages is Beja, which is spoken by nomadic peoples in the Eastern Desert, and has some close analogies to Egyptian. 2.2 Origins and Development of Egyptian Writing Although Egyptian was certainly one of the languages spoken in the lower Nile Valley in prehistoric times, the first writing of the language did not appear until about 3200 bc. The earliest known hieroglyphs appear at the same time that a large state was consolidated and controlled by the first Egyptian kings. From the beginning the writing system had a royal context, and this is probably the setting in which writing was invented in Egypt. It used to be proposed that writing was first invented in Mesopotamia and then the idea of writing diffused to Egypt. The structure, scripts, media, and uses of the two writing systems, however, are very different, and it seems more likely that writing was invented independently in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. ITTC02 1/25/07 2:54 PM Page 26 26 Hieroglyphs, Language, and Pharaonic Chronology BC 12345 3000 Early Dynastic Period Archaic (Dyns I–II) Egyptian 2500 Old Kingdom (Dyns III–VIII) Old Egyptian First Int. Period 2000 (Dyns IX–X) Middle Middle Kingdom Egyptian (Dyns XI–XII) Second Int. Period (Dyns XIII–XVII) 1500 New Kingdom (Dyns XVIII–XX) Late Egyptian 1000 Traditional Third Int. Period Middle (Dyns XXI–XXIV) Egyptian Late Period 500 (Dyns XXV–XXX) Demotic Greek Period AD Roman Period 500 Coptic Arab Period 1000 1500 Figure 2.1 Stages of the Egyptian language. Source: Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian: Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 8. Reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press ITTC02 1/25/07 2:54 PM Page 27 Hieroglyphs, Language, and Pharaonic Chronology 27 In use for over 3,000 years during pharaonic and Greco-Roman times, spoken Egyptian changed through time (see Figure 2.1). These changes are reflected to some extent in the written language (see Figure 2.2). Early Egyptian is the earliest, formative stage of writing and dates to Dynasty 0 and the first three dynasties. The earliest hieroglyphs are found on artifacts from tombs: royal labels that were probably attached to grave goods, royal seals, and labels of high state officials. Hieroglyphs are also found on early royal ceremonial art, the most famous of which is the Narmer Palette (see Figure 5.5). The use of these signs was not standardized. Writing at this time was used to record words as items of information – rather than consecutive speech, with verbal sentences, syntax, etc., and the earliest writing remains incompletely understood because there simply is not enough material. Many more texts are known from the Old Kingdom (4th–6th Dynasties), in a form of the written language known as Old Egyptian. In combination with scenes, hieroglyphic texts appear on the walls of tombs of private individuals, and in the later Old Kingdom, the earliest royal mortuary texts, known as the Pyramid Texts, are found in the inner chambers of pyramids. Full syntax was being written down at this time. Middle Egyptian (also known as Classical Egyptian) is the written language of the Middle Kingdom (later 11th and 12th–13th Dynasties) and Second Intermediate Period. This is the classical period of ancient Egyptian literature, when literary texts such as the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor and the Story of Sinuhe were composed. Instructional texts in mathematics, medicine, and veterinary practice are known, as well as letters, legal documents, and government records. Religious texts were written in Middle Egyptian, not only in the Middle Kingdom, but also in later periods. Developing as part of the same large corpus as the late Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts, mortuary texts for private individuals were painted or incised on the sides of Middle Kingdom coffins, hence the term Coffin Texts. New Kingdom mortuary texts are also mainly in Middle Egyptian, including the so-called Book of the Dead (more correctly known as the Going Forth by Day) and the underworld books found on the walls of royal tombs. Around 700 dif- ferent hieroglyphic signs were used to write Middle Egyptian (but no one text would ever be written with so many different signs). Late Egyptian is the written language of the later New Kingdom (19th–20th Dynasties) and Third Intermediate Period. Although it had been spoken for a long time, Late Egyptian did not appear as a fully written language until later in the 18th Dynasty, during the reign of Akhenaten. The huge body of monumental texts on the walls of New Kingdom temples continued to be written in a form of Middle Egyptian. Numerous surviving government records include the account of a workers’ strike, and many types of texts known earlier, such as literary works, letters, and medical and magical texts, are written in Late Egyptian. Demotic is the written language (as well as a script) associated with the Late Period, beginning with the 26th Dynasty (664–525 bc), and it continued to be in use through Greco-Roman times. A large body of Demotic literature is known, especially narrative and instruction texts. The latest known use of Demotic is from a graffito at the temple of Philae, dating to ad 452. ITTC02 1/25/07 2:54 PM Page 28 28 Hieroglyphs, Language, and Pharaonic Chronology Figure 2.2 Limestone ostracon, with Coptic inscriptions on both sides, addressed to Psan, probably the disciple of Epiphanius, and naming Pesentius of Coptos/Qift. © Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London UC62848 The latest (and last) form of the ancient Egyptian language is Coptic, which began to be written in the 2nd century ad (see Figure 2.2). Since hieroglyphs were associated with pagan temples and practices in Egypt, Egyptian-speaking Christians wrote in Coptic, using the Coptic alphabet, which was derived from the Greek alphabet, with the addi- tion of a few letters derived from Demotic. The last hieroglyphs are from the late 4th century ad, after which knowledge of this ancient writing system was lost. Gradually after the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 7th century, Arabic began to replace Coptic as the spoken and written language. Coptic continues to be used as the liturgical language of the Egyptian Coptic Church. 2.3 Scripts and Media of Writing Ancient Egyptian was written in different scripts, depending on the media and the time period. Hieroglyphs are the pictographic signs that appeared from the earliest times when writing was invented in Egypt. Hieroglyphic signs never became abstract and were the most formal script, of symbolic importance for all monumental texts, both religious and mortuary. Hieroglyphic texts were carved on the walls, ceilings, and columns of stone temples, and on many types of artifacts. They were also painted or carved on the walls of tombs, and were used to record many religious texts on papyrus. At the same time that early hieroglyphs were used, a more cursive and informal script now called hieratic developed. Written in ink and not carved, hieratic was easier to write than the pictographic hieroglyphs, and is a more abstracted form of these signs (see Figure 2.3). Both hieratic and cursive hieroglyphs were used to write texts on papyrus. ITTC02 1/25/07 2:54 PM Page 29 Hieroglyphs, Language, and Pharaonic Chronology 29 Figure 2.3 Fragmentary papyrus in hieratic about the Battle of Qadesh, fought by Rameses II in the 19th Dynasty (E. 4892). The Art Archive/Musée du Louvre Paris/Dagli Orti Records were also written in hieratic on ostraca, broken pieces of pottery or fragments of limestone. Plastered wooden boards were another writing medium, and adminis- trative letters with hieroglyphs written vertically on clay tablets, using a bone stylus, have been excavated in the late Old Kingdom governor’s palace at Balat, in Dakhla Oasis (see 6.12).
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